


Escaped, red-fingered

by ConvenientAlias



Category: Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:14:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22942354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: Raffles injures his fingers during some reckless reconnaissance, and retreats to Bunny's place for help.
Relationships: Bunny Manders/A. J. Raffles
Comments: 8
Kudos: 12
Collections: Writing Rainbow Red





	Escaped, red-fingered

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DoreyG](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/gifts).



Raffles came to my place that night very late, a bit past midnight. I was prepared to do my customary grumbling, especially since we had made no sort of agreement to meet that day and because he was still wearing the outfit of an absolute ruffian—scruffy beard, dirty face, ragged coat and all—and if he’d been seen coming in, there might be all sorts of gossip or even suspicion. But when I hastily pulled him through the door by the wrist, he let out a small groan, and I took a closer look at him.

“Your face looks queer, Raffles.”

“Queer! That’s a way of putting it. Bunny, you must help me with this coat, I don’t think I can take it off. I’ve had a hell of a time coming here, even. The train was crowded, and all the jostling—and I had to hold the rail…”

While he went on like this I did help him with his coat, unbuttoning it and drawing it off his shoulders, and when I had to work the sleeves, I saw his difficulty. Regardless, I worked the coat off him before taking a closer look. Prolonging the process would only cause him more pain, too high a price for curiosity.

The problem was his fingers. There were a couple swelling on both hands—though the right hand’s pointer and middle finger were the most swollen out of the bunch, and the left hand had come out lightly in comparison. They were amazingly red, and even looking at them gave me sympathetic twinges in my own body. I held out my hand and he gave me his right hand, resting his fingers very lightly on my palm. But I only studied them for a moment.

“These need treatment. God, Raffles—you would have done better to run straight to a doctor than to come here.”

“Looking like this, going to a doctor? The ones that would take me would be far too curious, and they aren’t the sort of people one wants to owe a favor. No, Bunny, it had to be you. You know enough of first aid, I know. Back in school…”

But there was no time for reminiscences on some of our more unfortunate exploits. I headed out to the street. It was early winter, then, and there was a certain amount of ice and snow around, and I didn’t bother to keep any in the house, hard as it was to keep frozen. It was dirty, of course, not exactly sanitary, but Raffle’s hands were swollen, not cut, and I was going to wrap it in a thin towel anyhow. I brought it inside and wrapped it up, sat Raffles down on the couch, and told him to rest his hands on the couch’s back with the ice pressed against his fingers. We had to bring the swelling down before we could do anything else, after all.

“Is the pain sharp, or dull?”

“Sharp, dull, both—It hurts, Bunny, what more is there to say? Serves me right for being such a damn fool, though. I was doing reconnaissance at the Longwood Mansion as I have been every night lately, and the lights were all off, and I thought everyone was out. But I forgot the second butler. Anyways I tried to climb in the window to take a peek at the safe—not that I was going to crack it without you, of course, it would take too long, but I thought I could get a peek—and the bastard hit my hands on the window sill with some sort of bludgeon! I guess I’m lucky I didn’t break my ankle,” Raffles added reflectively, “but it’s hard to be grateful at a time like this.”

This brief exposition, and in fact everything he’d said since arriving, was spoken through grimacing lips and occasionally broken by a gasp. Fingers are a very sensitive part of the body. I stroked Raffles’ shoulder soothingly, and he sighed.

“Would you like something to drink? It might ease the pain a bit.”

“Just a little.”

I poured him a small glass of burgundy as per his instructions, but I kept the bottle out. Raffles was ever temperate, considered it a necessity for our profession, but he might in the end make an exception for tonight.

Of course he couldn’t hold the glass himself with his hands iced and elevated. I sat down next to him on the couch and gently brought the glass to his lips—holding his cheek with my other hand to steady it. When he opened his mouth I poured the wine in a little at a time, making sure to allow him to swallow. It wasn’t a bad thing to watch, the way his throat moved or even the way his lips kissed the glass. But of course I had to remain focused and could not fully appreciate it. Until the glass was finished, and, putting it aside, I kissed the last traces of wine off his lips—then, feeling the flavor too desirable to leave off there, licked into his mouth and drank it from his tongue.

He moaned, now in pleasure rather than the pained groans from before. A much better sound. I kissed him thoroughly, not bothered by the texture of his beard on my clean-shaven chin. Oddly enough, I’d kissed Raffles more often in disguise than out of it, probably because the excitement of a heist tended to go to our heads. It wasn’t that I found him more attractive like this. I found him attractive in every guise (the clothes of high society as much a costume as any other); he remained Raffles, after all, the man for whom I had formed a dangerous infatuation. He had come straight from breaking into a house—he was a wounded hero, or at least a wounded villain—and I could not keep my hands off of him.

I did not stop when he let out a sharp gasp, sucking in air. I assumed it was just the effect of my kissing him until he nudged me off with his shoulders, and continued to gasp while I stared at him worriedly. Despite the wine and despite my kisses, his face was still pale and now as pained as before. Apparently he’d jolted his fingers, going to touch me. I rearranged the towel and reluctantly retreated, unwilling to risk hurting him further—though he complained about this, saying he wouldn’t be so stupid again, I knew such words could not be trusted to hold true in the heat of the moment.

When we had iced his hands for maybe an hour, we took another look at his fingers. Much of the swelling had gone down. Raffles remarked happily that perhaps they were only sprained rather than broken. I told him it might be one or the other, and he should certainly see a doctor tomorrow. For tonight, I splinted his fingers, and I would have bid him farewell, but he said to me plaintively, “You can’t be so cruel as to send me off, Bunny. Why, I could barely open the door to my own flat like this. And look at—” He gestured to the rest of his clothing, which apart from the coat I had left on. Ragged clothes and beard and dirt. Not suitable for a gentleman’s house.

I sighed. “Well then, you’ll stay the night here. As for your appearance, we’ll see what can be done about it.”

He nodded.

I began by taking his clothes off. I must admit I got a little waylaid here. My intention was to remain strictly clinical, and I managed this when removing his vest and even his trousers, but when I took off his shirt and undershirt I did end up groping a little, and Raffles did nothing to discourage me. We got distracted for a solid ten minutes. But I was conscientious enough to stop before progressing anywhere too dramatic—we were trying to accomplish something, after all—and I went and ran a warm bath for him so he could wash off the dirt.

Meanwhile, Raffles was still irked at me abandoning him. When I returned and removed his underwear, he said, “You can’t just leave me like this, Bunny.”

“Like what?”

In fact I knew very well what he meant, which he emphasized by gesturing frustratedly at his erect cock. But I pretended confusion and peered at it critically. “Oh, I see. Well, I don’t see how that’s my problem.”

He waved his splinted fingers at me, emphasizing how powerless he was to do anything about it. But I was in the mood to deny him a little. Poor Raffles! But it was his own fault. In school I had been eager to please, always willing and obedient, but Raffles had taught me, along with criminality, a certain willful playfulness. In fact he had been known to tease me far too many times in the past, and I was bent on revenge.

“You can rub off against a chair,” I told him mercilessly. “Or a wall, if you really want. Or just use your thumbs and pinkies—I trust your power of invention to figure it out.”

He really should have whined at this. But he was still Raffles, and he saw right through my façade. With a deep, regretful sigh, he said, “I shouldn’t impose on you, Bunny, I know. After dealing with the results of my stupidity tonight, it’s quite understandable that you have no fondness for me at the moment. It’s too kind of you to run a bath for me already. Very well. I won’t trouble you with this. In fact, I won’t even stay the night—it’s far too much—I can probably make my way home after all, as soon as I’m clean enough. We can go to the bath now.”

Seeing my bluff called, I grabbed his arm as he tried to walk past me to the bathroom. He raised his eyebrows. I held him in place with one hand on his bare shoulder, and with the other I took his cock in hand and began to give it some slow, careful tugs.

This, at last, brought some color to his wan face. He gasped, and even began to stagger, weakened by all this pleasure on top of the night’s exertions—I pulled back for a moment and guided him to the wall, so he could set his back against it. Then I went back to work, eliciting quiet moans and whimpers, until at last he came, leaving my fist quite dirty. While he panted and slowly regained his composure, I wiped my hand off on his chest.

“Satisfied?”

“Oh, yes, Bunny. Very.” He smiled, still breathless. Eyes glinting. “Should I—”

If he wanted to reciprocate, the answer was of course yes, but if we took any longer the bath water would get cold, so it would have to wait until later. “You should wash off. Come on.”

I helped him into the bath and, since he couldn’t even put his hands in the water without getting the splints wet, washed him off with a washcloth. He didn’t speak as I did so, only leaning back against the tub’s edge with his eyes closed. It was a peaceful silence.

In fact I even presumed to imagine he might be thinking about me, what we might do in bed when the bath was done, or how good I had been to him in this dilemma. And maybe he was a little, but not mostly, because as he climbed out of the bath, he said to me, “We’ll have to rethink our approach on the Longwood job. Now they’ve been alerted, and with my fingers injured I can’t crack the safe. Though with the proper coaching, you might be able to handle it. I’ve been thinking about teaching you lately anyway.”

And so we ended up discussing business for quite a while, and did not get to bed for a very long time.


End file.
